The Impact of Holiday Cracker Gags Do to The Brain?

"How much did Father Christmas's sleigh cost? Zero, it was on the house."

This quip is met by groans that resonate through a storage facility in the capital.

This describes a joke-testing session with a firm that produces supplies for social events. Its repertoire features Christmas crackers.

The company's founder smiles, nearly sheepishly at the gag. But the pun has been selected and will feature in future crackers.

"The success is gauged by the gag by the volume of moans and the intensity of the groans at the table," the founder explains.

The secret to a good Christmas cracker pun is not the identical as a stand-up joke per se. It is all about the context - in this instance, the communal laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, kids and possibly neighbours.

"The goal is for the joke to be something that unites the child together with the 80-year-old," she states.

The Science Behind Communal Amusement

Coming together to experience communal laughter is not only nothing new, scientists argue, it is likely to be pre-human.

"Therefore when you are laughing with others at the Christmas dinner you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammalian play sound," says a professor.

Shared laughter, she says, helps forge and strengthen social connections between people.

Scientists have discovered that a absence of such interactions can seriously harm mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and share laughter with, it leads to increased amounts of endorphin uptake," she continues.

These natural chemicals are the brain's "feel-good compounds" and are released both to reduce tension and discomfort and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with loved ones over a truly terrible festive cracker gag.

"It's not simply laughing at a foolish joke with a Christmas cracker," she states. "You are actually doing a lot of the truly vital work of making, maintaining the connections you have with the people you care about."

Which Occurs In the Brain?

But what is truly taking place inside the mind when we listen to a joke?

A tremendous amount occurs in reaction to comedy, it transpires.

Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which indicates which parts of the mind are working harder, scientists have been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

The research entails scanning the brains of volunteer subjects and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, paired with either a non-emotional sound, or recorded laughter.

"During the study we got a really interesting activation pattern of activation," says the professor.

A gag stimulates not just the areas of the mind in charge of hearing and interpreting language, but also brain areas involved in both planning and starting motion and those involved in sight and memory.

Combine these elements as a whole, and individuals hearing a joke have a complex set of brain reactions that support the amusement we hear.

The Infectious Nature of Laughter

Scientists discovered that when a funny phrase is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the mind than the same phrase when accompanied by a neutral sound.

"This activation occurred in areas of the mind that you would employ to move your face into a grin or a chuckle," the professor says.

It indicates we are not just responding to humorous jokes, they are responding to the laughter that follows them.

Amusement, says the expert, can be infectious.

So what does this imply for the laughter found around a Christmas gathering?

"You laugh harder when you know others," she says, "and you laugh more when you are fond of them or love them."

When it comes to festive cracker puns, she says, the feel-good effect is more likely to be caused not by the gag in itself, but from the reaction to it.

"The laughter is key. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker pun, and it's just a pretext to chuckle as a group."

The Search for the Perfect Cracker Joke

Is it possible to discover the ultimate joke?

Likely not, but that has not prevented experts from attempting to.

Years ago, a professor established a research search for the world's most humorous joke.

Over tens of thousands of gags submitted, with scores provided by hundreds of thousands of participants around the world, he has a better idea than many as to what works and what fails.

The ideal festive cracker joke must be short, he says.

"They must also need to be bad gags, jokes that make us groan," he adds.

The increasingly "awful" the gag, he says the more effective.

"This is because if nobody finds it funny – it's the gag's shortcoming, not your own.

"The fascinating part about the holiday cracker puns is that none of us find them funny.

"That's a common moment at the gathering and I believe it's lovely."